The Participants of the WCRP/SCAR International Programme for Antarctic Buoys (IPAB) work together to maintain a network of drifting buoys in the Southern Ocean, in particular over sea ice, to provide meteorological and oceanographic data for real-time operational requirements and research purposes.

IPAB data are used for many purposes, for example:

1. Research in Antarctic climate and climate change

2. Forecasting weather and ice conditions

3. Validation of satellite measurements

4. Forcing, validation and assimilation into numerical climate models

5. Tracking the source and fate of samples taken from the ice

IPAB is coordinated by Christian Haas from the Alfred Wegener Institute (Germany) and chaired by Shuki Ushio from the National Institute of Polar Research (Japan). IPAB is a sister program of the International Arctic Buoy Program IABP.